Maps can help you build reputation and increase sales: Index and Yandex Ads held a workshop on geoservices

Maps can help you build brand awareness and increase sales: Index and Yandex Ads held a master class on geoservices.

The main goal of the organized master class was to show businesses how to use geoservices not only as a navigation tool, but also as a full-fledged channel for communication, brand awareness management, customer engagement, and business insights.

The event was attended by representatives of large companies in the banking, fintech, retail, development, pharmaceutical, telecom, and automotive industries.

**From brand awareness on the map to real sales**

The role of geoservices in building brand awareness became one of the central topics of the event.

Experts from the Index reputation marketing agency Jasur Pulatov and Shahzod Mukhtorov discussed how the geoservice ecosystem is structured in Uzbekistan, who its audience is, and why maps are becoming one of the main reputation nodes in management practice.

The experts also separately examined how a company's reputation is formed in map services, how ratings and reviews affect traffic, sales, and audience loyalty, and how user opinions become a source of valuable insights for business.

“Working with GEO is becoming the most important reputation node for increasing trust in your business, improving visibility and increasing sales. How a company appears on map services today directly shapes customer trust and affects purchasing decisions, overall perception, AI (SI) results and even semantics. PR specialists and marketers at all levels must pay special attention to this in order to build a long-term reputation strategy for a brand,” said Timur Abdulin, head of the reputation marketing agency Index.

Experts from Yandex Ads presented the possibilities of promotion and working with the audience through advertising.

Marina Chuyko, Head of International Yandex Maps Advertising Development, talked about how brands can stand out when a user is searching for a place or building a route, and how to choose advertising formats taking into account business objectives, category and geography.

“Today, geomarketing is one of the most promising areas of digital promotion, and the event convincingly confirmed this. In particular, questions about updating information about organizations on Yandex Maps and the platform’s advertising capabilities aroused great interest among the audience. Many participants were sincerely surprised by how much these basic tools affect customer flow and business visibility.”

Yandex Ads Space Technical Solutions Manager Rasul Serik presented the possibilities of managing advertising campaigns, evaluating the effectiveness of placement, ML-optimization and analytics.

“The level of organization is excellent and the audience’s involvement is incredible: I was pleasantly surprised by the number of questions asked about our products and the fact that more guests came than expected. The event was maximally lively and useful, and the full hall once again confirmed the relevance of the topic. I am glad that I made many pleasant and promising acquaintances with colleagues from the digital community of Uzbekistan!”

Yandex Telegram Ads Project Manager Liliya Fattakhova talked about building a sales funnel through messengers, searching for a target audience and choosing the optimal format for placement.

**Panel discussion with experts alternating roles**

One of the most unusual parts of the program was an interactive panel discussion. For 20 minutes, the usual model of “Yandex — client” interaction was completely reversed: two Yandex speakers became “clients”, and two guests from the hall became the “Yandex Ads team”.

Yandex Ads experts played the role of skeptical customers, asking questions about the effectiveness and business impact of the products. Two guests from the hall became the Yandex Ads team. The task of the guest team was to sell the product. In the final of each round, they “took off their masks” and revealed the main facts about their tools.

**Geomarketing as the intersection of marketing and reputation**

The workshop showed that the brand's work with geoservices today is located at the intersection of several areas at once - marketing, advertising, PR, ORM and customer service.

For business, this means the need for a systematic approach: in addition to ensuring the company's presence on the map, it is also important to manage what the user sees when making a choice - exactly which rating, reviews, visual content and advertising message will form his first impression of the brand.

The GeoMarketing Workshop brought together business representatives and Yandex Ads and Index experts for a practical conversation about how geoservices are becoming part of companies' modern marketing and reputation strategies.

Information partners of the event: "Daryo.uz", "Repost.uz", "Kapital.uz", "PR.uz", "Kursiv Media".

**Organizers:**

Yandex Ads develops advertising platforms based on Yandex Neuro Ads neurotechnology to help businesses expand their customer audience and increase sales. Advertising systems cover more than 600,000 advertisers from different countries. With their help, companies find potential customers and personalize communication with their audience. More than 90,000 partners, including website owners, developers of mobile games and applications, bloggers and authors, earn income from displaying Yandex Ads ads.

Index is the first reputation marketing agency in Uzbekistan, operating since 2023, which manages brand image, forms audience trust and builds a stable reputation in the digital environment and media space.